


How would  the king know

by SerlinaBlack



Series: Unrelated Merlin stuff [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Everyone Loves Merlin (Merlin), F/M, Fluff, Jealous Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), King Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), M/M, Protective Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), merlin protection squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22387057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerlinaBlack/pseuds/SerlinaBlack
Summary: Rumour has it some of the King's closest and most trusted are tasked to make sure his manservant is well protected. but one shouldn't always listen to rumours now should they ? and even if it were true, Why would the king know
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Unrelated Merlin stuff [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922266
Comments: 17
Kudos: 1504
Collections: Emrys is a mess





	How would  the king know

Arthur can feel the vain on his forehead throb as his guest laughs yet again in a way that gets on his nerves. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, not letting the smile he plastered on his face slip even a bit.

Lord Gordhob still looks at him in amusement and no well deserved wariness in those beady eyes he has. The man is the type of person Arthur has extreme difficulty to stand, what with his bootlicking attitude. He reminds Arthur of a fat rat covered in grease. Arthur pauses at the comparison, then decides it fits him more than he had intended. 

“Sire Your sense of humor is truly remarkable. I haven’t even thought of it like that.” He says before laughing again. Arthur can feel his plastered smile looking more and more fake. He knows without even looking back, his manservant is staring at the man incredulously. Even Arthur can admit that, it most definitely was not that funny of a joke.

Arthur hears a cough from Morgana, one that sounds particularly rude, but, well, obviously a lady of a royal house would _never_ be rude on purpose. (But a harpy would and that’s what his sister is. However, Lord Gordhob does not need to know that)

The man quietens down for a few minutes after that. The feast continuing as it does. Arthur suspects he sees Gwaine attempt to convince a servant to roll a barrel of wine to his personal quarters, but he turns a blind eye. Gwaine was much likely to listen to Percival than Arthur anyway. 

Merlin leans closer obviously to tell him something that would make him lose his composure, but Arthur has resigned to that fate ages ago. Also, from the way things go, it'd probably worry his subject if he didn’t laugh, or snort or look outraged at his manservant at least once in these shindings. 

He doesn’t get the chance to do so this time however, since Lord Gordhob insists on being the most annoying guest in history and Arthur still has to play the gracious host. 

"Your Majesty, pardon me, but what is this most fetching wine barer's name?" he asks sounding curious and leering at Merlin in an obvious attempt to get the servant in the sack. 

Somehow, not even his tomfool of a manservant misses the leer. Arthur is sure he's going to have a permanently smiling face with how hard he's holding onto his fake smile. Morgana snorts not looking at either of them, Gwen beside her looks troubled.

"Fetching is not a word I'd describe him with" Arthur says swerving the man's attempts to get Merlin's name. And he's not lying either, he'd use words much more poetic to describe Merlin, like stunning, magnetic, charismatic, Beauty beyond what he thought possible. Not that he'll actually ever say that to Merlin. 

Lord Gordhob huffs but doesn’t stop smiling, "Truly, someone with a face like that wouldn’t need to be good at their job after all."

What the _hell_ was that supposed to mean? 

"Yes, he isn’t good at it-" Arthur agrees because that was true enough. Merlin was an abysmal servant at the best of days. "- but him having his job has nothing to do with his _face_." 

And it doesn’t. As much as Arthur appreciates how gorgeous Merlin is, it's how Good he is inside and out that made it impossible for Arthur to get rid of him. Merlin is one of the very few people that challenge Arthur, He's the one who Arthur knows he can turn to at the end of the day no matter what. He has proven to be worth everything and more to Arthur by being there for him come hell or high water. Whatever Lord Gordhob was implying was cheapening how much Merlin actually meant to Arthur. 

"Of course not sire" the man raised his hands in a surrendering motion despite the fact Arthur hasn’t really done anything to attack him.... Yet. 

"I simply mean to say it would not be.... Remiss of you to have... Alternate, usage of your servant" the smile the man gave him was nothing short of sleazy. And it took near all of Arthur's self restraint to not just throw his gauntlet at the man's face and meet him in the arena. 

He made eye contact with Morgana to see her similarly enraged, and Gwen glaring beside her. Ever since Merlin took her under his tutelage, they’ve become thick as thieves. That wasn’t particularly good for Arthur since they gang up on him more often than not.

Morgana also became close friends with the knights though, that was more Gwen’s doing than anything. In this case that was good. Because it means the knights would be hearing this soon and Arthur could hardly wait for the man’s comeuppance. 

“I assure you there has been no _Alternate usage_ of any servant of the court of Camelot. If one wanted to court a servant, they’d go about the traditional way of doing so. After all, It would be barbaric to think so otherwise, Our servants are as much as human as we are.” He says sharply. Catching Gwaine’s eye in the crowd and turning back towards Gordhob with a barely there pointed chin toward the ratlike man.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Merlin, in his all insulting ways ponced into his room the next morning with too much cheer for the morning. Luckily, Arthur was somewhat awake so he didn’t have to literally drag him out of the bed. 

“The scullery girls were talking about Lord Gordhob a while ago” He informs as he sets the breakfast down. 

“And you went to listen in like the girl you are” Arthur rolled his eyes. Though he couldn’t deny that he was curious what his Knights came up with. 

“He left last night. Without even informing you.” Merlin places the things in his room in the right spot and frowns when he sees a pillow on the other side of the room. 

“How odd. We should send someone to know why he left.” Oh, the chef gave extra bacon, great!

“That’s the thing; He wouldn’t tell anyone why he was leaving. Mary says He looked like he saw a ghost.” Well, Gwaine just won himself a day off to go to the tavern it seems. Arthur looks up to see Merlin looking lost in thought.

“That’s unfortunate.” Arthur looked intently at his breakfast. “He was unpleasant though.” Merlin turned back towards him and squinted as though he thought Arthur did something but shook his head. 

“I hope it’s not some magical attack again.” Merlin says after a while of silence.  
‘That wouldn’t happen so often if you just said you have magic and I didn’t have to look at incompetent fools everyday’ Arthur thought glumly. 

“Hopefully, The problems won’t be too troubling at least until we have a court sorcerer.” He says instead and leaves it at that. 

When he goes to the courtyard that morning, all the knights had a satisfied smile on their faces and Morgana came to watch with Gwen. When Merlin asked what that was about, well, how was he supposed to know.


End file.
